


This Countless Debt

by FluffyBeaumont



Category: Dark Shadows (1966)
Genre: Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-19
Updated: 2012-11-19
Packaged: 2017-11-19 01:58:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FluffyBeaumont/pseuds/FluffyBeaumont
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To love is to risk not being loved in return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Countless Debt

**Author's Note:**

> "And one sweet kiss shall pay this countless debt[...]Tis but a kiss I beg; why art thou coy?" (From Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis"

“Hey, Jason?” Willie Loomis came into their ridiculously small quarters and sat down dejectedly on the lower berth. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course you can, Willie m’lad.” Jason McGuire was lying full length on the top berth and reading a newspaper. At least, he appeared to be reading a newspaper. If Willie knew him at all – and he figured he knew Jason as well as he knew anybody – he was planning something. It was what Jason did. “Where’ve you been, by the way? You missed supper. It was really good. I think Yoshi finally got the hang of baked potatoes.” Yoshi, of course, was the cook aboard the freighter _Hiei Maru_ : a dab hand with fish and seafood of any variety but sadly lacking in the sort of stodgy Celtic fare Jason was used to and indeed preferred. 

“Ashore.” Willie shrugged his arms out of his heavy knit sweater and pulled the garment over his head. “I told this girl I’d meet her.” He shook his head, falling suddenly silent. “I guess it didn’t work out.” 

Jason laid the newspaper aside. “Why in the name of God not?” 

Willie shrugged. “I think she had…expectations.” 

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Willie, all women have expectations. The trick is to pretend to meet their expectations while subtly indulging your own.” 

Willie stood up, leaning his elbows on Jason’s berth, the easier to see him. “I don’t think it was that. I tried to kiss her and she yelled. I was scared she’d have the whole damn town on top of me if I didn’t high tail it out of there.” 

Jason suppressed a grin. It wouldn’t do for Willie to think he was being laughed at. “You tried to kiss her and she shouted? What did you do? Bite her?” 

Willie’s face coloured, a subtle but pervasive pink. “I dunno. Maybe.” 

“You don’t know.” Jason sighed. “Willie, just how many girls have you gone out with? Surely to God it’s more than just the one.” 

Willie bristled at the suggestion. “Of course I have. You know me, I got a girl in every port.” He stuck his hands in his back pockets and straightened up. “I got no trouble with women.” 

“Sure you don't,” Jason muttered. 

Willie pretended not to hear him. “Well, we’re shipping out of here tomorrow morning anyway, so it doesn’t matter.” He sat down on his berth and kicked off his shoes. “Then she’ll be nothing but a memory to me.” 

“Good riddance to bad rubbish – is that it?” Jason shook his head and flapped the newspaper open in front of his face. “Clearly you need a few pointers, my lad. It’s obvious you don’t understand the first thing about women.” 

“I haven’t noticed you getting any lately,” Willie retorted sulkily. “So stop acting like you’re some Don Juan.” He lay back on his berth and closed his eyes.

“I’m not interested in merely ‘getting any’,” Jason told him, “because I have other plans – much more important plans, including several long-term goals involving a great deal of planning and forethought.” 

Willie kicked the bottom of Jason’s berth. “So who’s it going to be this time? A rich widow? Blind heiress? A dowager countess who’s always had a soft spot for –” Here Willie deftly aped Jason’s brogue, “—a bit o’ the rough?” 

“Willie.” Jason leaned over the bunk, hanging his head down so he could look at Willie directly. “I’m serious, now. Next time we make port we’ll go ashore together, you and me, and I’ll show you a few of my…techniques.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Willie turned onto his side, one arm tucked beneath his pillow. He could still see the girl’s expression as she pulled back from him in horror: _Too much, no way, tongue, so you not! You forget it!_ Her broken English made the whole encounter even more humiliating than it already was. “Hey, turn off that light, would you? I want to go to sleep.” 

Jason sighed, folding away his newspaper, but he did as Willie asked. “You could have just paid for a whore, you know.” Maybe it was cruel of him to mention it, but he truly couldn’t help himself. Willie wasn’t a stupid lad; he merely needed to apply himself now and then, which he seemed loath to do. “It is done.” 

Willie was grateful for the darkness, which hid his burning face. “Jason, she was a whore.” 

There was an awkward silence. Jason cleared his throat. “Willie, m’boy –” 

“Don’t bother me.” Willie pulled the thin blanket up around his shoulders. “I’m asleep.” 

“What I was going to say, before I was so rudely interrupted –” Jason flung the newspaper in the general direction of the table. “Is that I can help you, if you’ll let me.” 

”Help me how?” Willie was understandably suspicious. 

“Simple: next time you go ashore, I’ll go along. We’ll take ourselves to some amenable establishment and I’ll show you how a woman wants to be treated.” 

“Mmm.” Willie was noncommittal. “Okay.” 

“Now I insist you place yourself entirely in my hands.” 

“Sure. I’ll do that.” Willie yawned. 

“That’s the spirit,” Jason said. “You won’t regret it, Willie. I promise you that.” 

 

 

Their first port of call on the voyage was a small Eastern city, unremarkable in every way except for the fact that, in its modest waterfront sector, one entire street was devoted to nothing but pubs. Willie was all for starting at one end and working their way down but Jason had a better idea. “What we want is a pub that’s got lovely looking lasses behind the bar.” 

”How can you tell just by looking?” Willie asked. 

“Well now, any pub where the men are lined up to get in has got something special. I can assure you, Willie, I’ve got a sixth sense for these sorts of things.” Jason glanced carefully up and down the street. “Now, that pub just up the lane there, the one with the carriage painted over the door.” He pointed at the one he meant and Willie nodded. “Do you see? There’s nobody lined up to get in there, except for those two wee girls.” The young ladies in question wore the same currently-fashionable mini-dresses as one was likely to see anywhere, and their hair was teased up to improbable heights. “Nice, as far as that goes, but not what we want.” 

“Not what we want?” Willie was confused. “But you said we were going to find girls.” 

“And so we will, but not in a place like that.” Jason turned around and gazed down the lower end of the street. “Now, see that pub, the one with the steps in front?” Willie did. “Notice the awful tumult being carried on in front of that fine establishment.” He meant, of course, the seething mass of able-bodied young men who were pushing and shoving each other to get inside. The line resembled the writhing back of some improbably huge reptile that was dead set on forcing itself through the eye of a needle. “That, Willie, is the pub we want to get into.” Jason started forward, Willie trailing in his wake. At first it seemed as though they’d spend their evening standing on the pavement waiting to get in, but the line moved relatively quickly and soon they were sidling up to the bar. Willie ordered his customary whiskey with a beer back from the buxom barmaid and gazed appreciatively around the room.

“You were right,” he grinned. He nudged Jason with his elbow. “That little redhead over by the window, now she’s just my type.” The girl was petite and vivacious, leaning close to a tall, dark-haired man whose conversation apparently made her giggle helplessly. 

”Willie, don’t.” Jason laid a warning hand on his arm. “She’s interested in him. If you go busting in there he’s likely to…well, I don’t know what he’ll do but you won’t like it.” He nodded at a tall, slender blonde standing to one side of the bar. “Now that girl is more your speed. Why don’t you ask her to dance?” And, when Willie demurred, “Go on, now. You’re not going to get any action stuck to me all night. Go on.” 

”What about you?” Willie asked. “You just going to sit here by yourself?” 

”Never you mind,” Jason grinned. “I’ll do just fine on my own, thank you.” He gave Willie a little shove in the direction of the blonde, and sat back to enjoy his pint in peace. It was the first time he’d been ashore in a while, but foreign ports no longer held the allure they once had. Maybe he was getting old. There were days when he felt like he’d done it all and seen it all, tasted all the pleasures and pains the world had to offer and then some. He hadn’t been home for so long that he no longer knew what the word meant, and as far as Ireland went, well…suffice to say he was no longer welcome in his native land, and his old man’s family still had enough clout to make sure Jason’s return to the old sod wasn’t going to happen any time soon. There was literally nowhere he could go in County Wexford without hearing Tiernan McGuire’s name, and nowhere he could go for peace or succour in his native land. He was an exile, certain sure. He sipped his beer and watched Willie dancing with the blonde. 

“Are you thinking that if you stare at him long enough he’ll come over and ask you for a dance?” 

Jason turned to see a pretty, dark-haired woman about his own age. Her hair was cut short and fashionably styled, and, unlike most of the other women present, she was wearing a sensible, knee-length skirt and a long sleeved blouse. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t see you there.” He grinned and introduced himself. “Will you have a seat? What are you drinking?” 

Her name was Marilyn and she was a schoolteacher. She pinpointed his accent right away: “County Wexford, or I miss my guess. See, the reason I know is that you talk like the crowd around here, and a lot of them have ancestors from Waterford and Wexford. So what are you doing in St. John’s, Irish?” 

Jason told her how he and Willie had been travelling the world, working their way around the globe, stopping now and then to see the sights before moving on again. He regaled her with tales from distant and exciting ports, while they both sipped Meagher’s and watched the dancers on the floor. “Do you not dance, yourself?” she asked, smiling. “Or am I overstepping my ladylike pretensions by asking?” 

”I do, and I can and I will.” Jason led her out onto the floor as the band – a local group whose name he didn’t know – switched from rock and roll to an ethereal ballad about a man who left behind the maid he loved and sailed the world to seek his fortune. It was a song he’d learned at his mother’s knee but, until he’d landed here, he’d never heard it outside of Ireland. It never failed to fill him with an undefinable longing that made him sad. 

”That young fellow you came in with.” Marilyn nodded towards Willie, still dancing with the blonde at the edge of the dance floor. “He’s your friend?” 

It was an odd question, Jason thought. “I’m not in the habit of going about with my enemies.” 

”But he’s not just any friend.” She gazed into his eyes for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, you’re a difficult man to know, Jason McGuire, but he knows you. And he loves you.” 

Jason was immediately on the defensive. “What are you talking about? We’re not a couple of –” The song ended and he stepped away from her. 

”No, that’s not what I meant.” She shook her head. “But you will find out. Of that I’ve no doubt.” She squeezed his hand. “Goodnight, Jason.” She turned and disappeared into the crowd milling near the bar and Jason was about to call to her when he saw the blonde with whom Willie had been dancing raise her purse and slam it into his face. Willie staggered back, shock written clearly across his features as the girl turned on her heel and stalked off. He found his way to the bar and leaned against it for a moment. 

”Another successful conquest, Willie?” Jason signalled the bartender for two more whiskies and slid one across to Willie. “You’re quite the master at repelling women.” He sipped his drink and pretended to consider the matter. “If we could bottle what you come by naturally, we’d make a fortune. We could advertise it as Woman Repellent, sell it to those poor men who find themselves overrun with attractive female company.” 

”Shut up, Jason.” Willie downed his drink and jerked his head towards the door. “Come on.” 

”To the ship?” Jason tossed back the whiskey and laid the glass back on the bar. “Oh no, Willie. There’s no way in God’s green earth I’m spending my shore leave aboard that bucket.” He slung an arm around Willie’s shoulder as they headed out. “I took the initiative and put us up in a nice little inn for the night.” 

”Really?” Willie pushed open the door and a chill wind slashed across their faces. “That was nice of you, Jason.” He buttoned his coat and shivered. “It’ll feel good to get out of this cold.” 

”Of course it will,” Jason replied, smiling. “And then we can talk about your problem.” 

 

 

”I thought we were gonna talk about my problem.” Willie came out of the bathroom, naked except for his underwear, a towel slung around his neck. Jason was sitting on the bed, hands resting loosely in his lap, still wearing his coat and hat and gazing in front of him as if enthralled by something only he could see. “Jason?” Willie touched his shoulder. “Are you alright?” 

Jason blinked at him. “Willie…sorry, I was…thinking.” He stood up, divesting himself of the cap and coat. “She said something very odd.” 

”The woman you were dancing with?” Willie turned back the bed covers and tested the mattress with his hand. “What’d she say?” 

”That’s the thing…I can’t remember.” Jason pulled his sweater over his head, tossed it onto a chair, and sat down to take off his shoes. “We were dancing and we both looked over at you and she said…” What? 

Willie climbed into the bed and fluffed the pillows, stacking them under his head so he was half sitting up. “Did she say anything about me?” 

Jason treated him to a withering glance. “Not everything is about you, Willie my boy.” He sighed, finished undressing, then climbed into bed. “We talked about…” Again, the shutter came down in his brain: what had she said to him before she’d left? _He knows you…and he loves you._ “Willie, tell me: why did that young lass see fit to bash you in the face with her purse? Was it something you said or something you did?” 

A delicate roseate blush tinted Willie’s cheeks. He pretended some busyness with the pillows. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I never know.” He sat back against the pillows. “You know, I don’t plan on doing this for the rest of my life…this roaming around the globe. I’ll want to settle somewhere…with someone.” This last was uttered in a near-whisper. He wouldn’t meet Jason’s eye. “I don’t want to be lonely forever.” 

”You won’t be.” An image rose up, unbidden and perhaps unwanted: a great house perched at the edge of a precipitous cliff, forever buffeted by the wind and lashed by the sea. He and Willie would go there, but only one of them would ever leave…

Only one would leave. 

”Jason? You okay?” Willie’s voice reached him through a haze of not-quite memories, the sea and the wind. Willie sat close enough to touch and yet it seemed as if he were addressing Jason across some enormous gulf. “You’re not sick or nothing, are you?”

”Of course not, Willie my lad.” It hurt to smile. In the middle of his chest, it hurt him. “Nights like this, they do things to a man…you get to remembering, even if memory isn’t a place you care to go.” He suddenly felt lonelier than he ever had in his life. The emotion was so intense that it made him almost physically sick; he wondered if he were having a heart attack. It was possible, wasn’t it? He was at that age and he’d never gone easy on himself. He lived hard, worked hard, played with abandon in whatever manner he saw fit, and Devil take the hindmost. “Willie…” He met the younger man’s gaze with some difficulty. It wasn’t an easy subject to broach. “If anything should happen to me…anything at all…there’s a few little things I’d like for you to have.”

”Don’t talk like that.” Willie’s voice was flat with fear. “You ain’t going nowhere – not yet and not for a long time.” He pushed the covers aside and sat up. “I don’t wanna hear you talk like that, Jason.” His mouth trembled. “I don’t ever want to hear you talk like that.” 

”Alright…” He shrugged it off, the strangeness and the feeling. “Consider it forgotten.” Outside the inn, the wind was rising, roaring down the chimney and rattling the windows in their frames. It was a comforting sound – a usual sound – and he was glad of it. “I’m not going anywhere, leastways not without you.” He reached out and clasped the younger man’s bare shoulder. “You’re my better angel, Willie. Did you know that?” _The better angel is a man right fair_ \- he’d learned that sonnet in school, and had always loved it. 

Willie peered at him, suspicion bright in his hazel eyes. “What’s that mean?” 

”It means we should stop talking about such serious things,” Jason said. “Now then, is there a bottle in the place?” 

 

 

Jason lay awake while Willie slept, watching the slow traverse of the moon across the night sky and thinking. A bottle of Meagher’s stood on the bedside table; they’d barely managed to put a dent in it, Willie pleading exhaustion and Jason for once not having the heart to do justice by the whiskey. His conversation with the woman in the bar was affecting him oddly, drawing old memories out of him, very much against his will. She might have been an Old One, for all that, and she might have laid a glamour on him – except Jason didn’t believe in such nonsense. Perhaps this was the reason for his headlong rush to sea, his endless roaming round the globe; maybe he was trying to leave his memories behind, be someone else, become a different man altogether to the one who’d first set to sea all those years ago. What was it Willie had said? _I don’t want to be lonely forever._

He turned onto his side, one arm tucked beneath his pillow, and gazed at Willie’s sleeping face. In sleep as in waking, Willie was beautiful, but there was nothing feminine about him, nothing soft or epicene or sissy. Willie was male to the marrow of his bones, hard as nails, tough as an old boot and ready to wade into any fight with both fists, and that at a moment’s notice. Jason wasn’t about to lie to himself: he knew his own proclivities and there had been times in their long history together when they’d helped each other out, so to speak, in the midst of long months at sea. 

_Willie, I hate to be askin’…_

_Asking what?_ All innocence and eyes, the little bastard. Parading half naked round the deck when they sat at anchor off Martinique, waiting for the transfer of a shipment that never came. 

_I’m fit to burst out of me skin._

_That ain’t good. We better do something._ They locked themselves into an empty cabin belowdecks and so far aft the rest of the boat’s crew didn’t even know it existed. There was no time to get properly undressed or even properly acquainted; he assumed it’d be a quick hand job and nobody’d be the wiser, until Willie dropped to his knees. 

_Let me do this._

_You don’t have to._

_I want to._

He was iron-hard already, his cock straining at the front of his pants, and then Willie leaned in and sucked the head into his mouth and Jason almost spilled everything he had right then and there. The filthy little room, the awful boat, the oppressive heat – it all went away. He was drowning in the most exquisite pleasure that went on and on, spinning him out into oblivion. 

When Willie got up from his knees, Jason held him so close he could feel the throb of the younger man’s heart against his chest. He kissed the pulses at the base of Willie’s throat and the ones on either side, and he kissed the sweet juncture of neck and shoulder where the skin tasted of salt and honey – but when Willie moved to kiss his mouth, Jason refused. _I don’t do that,_ he explained. _I never do that._

_Why not?_

_A kiss is too intimate, Willie. It’s not something you hand off to all and sundry._ As soon as he’d said it, he regretted it. Willie was silent the rest of the day and for several days after that. He was so silent that Jason wondered if he was sick, and he resolved to get Willie alone and apologize. He’d make a joke of it, a little light humor to take the edge off: _Sure, I’ll kiss you if you want me to. I just didn’t think you wanted me to._ A lie, of course, and they both knew it. A lie, and the moment irretrievably lost, a caesura in the shimmering fabric of time, brief and shining.

He drifted into sleep, and dreamed that he and Willie were lying together on a rumpled bed in a big house somewhere…an old, old house made of cold autumn stone and with a wind forever blowing around its eaves: haunting, horrific, sounding like fear. No, Willie was lying there and he, Jason, was sitting on the edge of the bed. Willie was frightened and Jason was trying to soothe him while at the same time trying to find out something he very much needed to know. 

_I said I was sorry…I said I was sorry…_

He woke, the darkness quiet and soft around him. Willie was sleeping peacefully, untroubled by dreams, his face left half in shadow by the dissipating moon. “I’d kiss you now.” He barely breathed it. Yes, he was still a coward, for all that. “I’d take you into my arms, Willie Loomis and I’d kiss you like you’ve never been kissed in your life.” _He knows you,_ the woman had said, _and he loves you._ He knew this love, had felt its icy texture lying against his spine when he was far out at sea or wandering in some foreign port, alone and friendless, unable to speak the language. He knew the ache of it, the wanting. Jason McGuire was no fool: they weren’t about to go skipping off into the sunset holding hands, not likely. But perhaps there was a compromise that could be made, an understanding…

”Jason.” Willie was awake and watching him. “Whatsa matter?” 

”I’d kiss you.” He said it again, very softly. “I’d kiss you, Willie. That I would. I’d kiss you now. I would.” 

Willie reached for him, a world of understanding in his eyes. 


End file.
